My Fault by Leora Fridman. Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 2016. 86 pages. $ 16.00, paper.

The ambiguity of Leora Fridman’s title, My Fault, is compelling. Perhaps this is a collection of confessions of guilt, intended to clear the speaker’s conscious? Fridman does not offer a direct answer to this question, but rather leaves it up to the reader to interpret the meaning behind her words. While her prose poems are very clear in language and sentence structure, the message is often hidden and requires a second or third read. Sentences that seem to be nonsensical at first, will eventually reveal their meaning, like in “Factions”, where she writes:

I have not found

any skin yet but I will

be there soon, just as

soon as I can fight off

the beavers peeling fibers

from my scalp, trying

to open my mind,

making me feel far

more awake than

I ever intended to find

myself, laughing at

how much human I am

My Fault does not focus on one particular topic, but on a plethora of personal thoughts of the speaker, evolving around everything and anything that is important to them.

– Tanja Vierrether, MAR

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